Seems more and more like the growing pains really aren't so much growing pains as they are symptoms of management just being in over their head. Expansion problems are going to be magnified when the company can't run itself properly in the first place, but that doesn't necessarily mean the expansion is the source of the problems.

You could blame the long wait times for training or IOE on expansion, but it's harder to blame expansion for the inability to have a forward-looking strategy on the SSP, or the continued desire to try and operate an airline of the size PSA is planned to be using mostly outstation bases. That's just the higher-ups dropping the ball.

I forget exactly what it stands for (special selection program, I think), but it's basically a guaranteed interview with the major partner (in this case American). It's an interview only, so not as solid as a flow-through agreement, but it is at least a foot in the door. American's other two wholly-owned regionals have flow-through agreements, however, and in similar or greater numbers on a monthly basis than PSA, so the PSA pilots want to improve what they have. American was contractually obligated to discuss improvements with PSA, but they weren't obligated to actually improve the agreement. They have fulfilled their contractual agreement at this point, and discussions continue, but no firm improvements are in sight.

Logically, it would be to everybody's advantage to increase the numbers going through the SSP per month (currently 4, which equates to 48 per year, which is okay when you have 400 pilots on property, not so good when you have the 1500 PSA is planning to have). More pilots going to American per month means more movement at PSA, which is good for the pilots. More movement at PSA means it's easier to recruit pilots to PSA, which is good for American. Additionally, getting more senior people at PSA to move on to American means that they can be replaced with less senior people lower down the payscale, which saves money on crew costs, again good for American. So it should be something that everyone would want, and the only things that would have to be ironed out are the specifics. But it seems like American is choosing to look at increased SSP numbers as solely benefiting the pilots, and thus requiring some sort of concession from the pilots in return. That's unlikely to fly with the pilots unless the concession is very minor and the increase in the SSP is huge.